


Live a Little

by knowyourincantations



Series: Femslash February 2019 [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2019, Flirting, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Past Hermione/Ron - Freeform, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowyourincantations/pseuds/knowyourincantations
Summary: Hermione encounters Pansy Parkinson in a hotel bar. It doesn't go as she might have expected.





	Live a Little

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femslash February 2019, Day 23 prompt 'Gold'.

Hermione didn’t bother looking up from her book as a drink appeared beside her at the bar. She reached out and pushed it away.

“Not interested,” she said dismissively.

“Trust me, Granger, you’re more interested in taking a drink from me than the man who was on his way over here,” a familiar voice said.

Familiar enough to draw Hermione’s attention away from her book. “Parkinson?”

Parkinson flicked some hair out of her face and took the barstool next to Hermione’s. She pushed the drink back towards her but Hermione didn’t look at it. She was a little more distracted by how short Parkinson’s skirt was, and sitting only made it ride up more until Hermione was sure she could see a flash of colour that could only be her knickers.

“Oh, let’s dispense with the hostility, shall we?” Parkinson said with an over-dramatic sigh that was loud enough to be heard over the chatter in the room. “Last names are so last season.”

Hermione glanced around the hotel bar. For an uncomfortable moment, her eyes met the gaze of a man who was staring at her with a scowl, a drink in each of his hands. Looking at him made Hermione shudder with an uncomfortable feeling, and she looked back to Parkinson instead.

“I suppose you’re slightly more tolerable than him,” she said, closing her book. It was unlikely Parkinson would leave her alone. “Dare I ask what you’re doing in a hotel bar on a Wednesday night?”

Parkinson took a sip of her own drink, something that seemed to glitter in the light. “I’m working, obviously.”

“Working?” Hermione raised an eyebrow.

With an expression of disgust, Parkinson kicked Hermione’s leg. “Not that kind of work! I’m a reporter, I just got done interviewing someone.”

Even though she dearly wanted to kick her back, Hermione turned sideways on her stool to give her more attention. “A reporter? For what newspaper? I’ve never seen your name anywhere.”

Parkinson rolled her eyes. “I write under a pseudonym, obviously. I’d never get any readers otherwise, and I certainly wouldn’t get anything printed in the first place with my own name attached. Surely an intelligent woman such as yourself could have figured that out.” Parkinson looked her over slowly. “Or are you refusing my drink because you’ve already had too many? Is that book some tool to sober up?”

Hermione scowled and slipped the book into her handbag.

Parkinson seemed to take that as invitation to lean closer and keep talking.

“Why are you reading in a hotel bar, of all places?” she asked, looking entirely too interested.

“There’s no story here,” Hermione scoffed. “Surely you’re aware there’s a symposium on non-human rights in the conference room on the third floor. There was a sign in the lobby. Surely a reporter would take note.”

With a pleased sort of hum, Parkinson sipped her drink again. It definitely glittered, and Hermione tried to figure out how without looking at it too openly.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that there’s always a story around you lot,” Parkinson said, putting the drink down and leaning even closer to her, until Hermione was sure she’d tip right off her stool. “Isn’t today Weasley’s wedding? To that Squib working in the Department of Mysteries?”

Heat flooded Hermione’s face. “The work I do is too important to miss a chance of networking with non-human rights workers in other countries. I’m not avoiding the wedding, this is just more important.”

Parkinson leaned one elbow on the bar and hummed. “But it must be nice that it coincided with your ex-boyfriend’s wedding.”

Hermione scowled and turned to grab the drink Parkinson had put down beside her. She’d gotten over Ron a long time ago, and they were still friends, but that didn’t mean she wanted to show up to his wedding without a date and admit to everyone that she was still alone. She wouldn’t normally care, but today...

As she picked up her drink, something in an elegant wine glass, it caught the light and glittered. Thoroughly distracted, she brought it closer to her face and squinted at it.

“Tell me that’s not real?” she gasped, putting the drink back down and staring at Parkinson.

With a satisfied looking smile, Parkinson took a sip from her own glass.

“Why is there gold in our drinks?” Hermione hissed.

Parkinson shrugged. “Why not?”

Hermione stared at her and then looked at the drink again. Light reflected off some gold flakes that she’d unsettled when she’d put it down suddenly.

“You know, the symposium only runs until five,” Parkinson said, turning to face the room and leaning back against the bar. “It’s now nine-thirty. Why don’t you just go home? Surely they’re not going to come looking for you just because you didn’t show up to the wedding.”

“None of your bloody business,” Hermione snapped, grabbing her handbag off the bar and hopping off her stool.

Before she could go far, a hand wrapped gently around her wrist and tugged her back.

“Yeah, going home to a lonely apartment while someone you once loved gets married must be very off-putting,” Parkinson said, picking up Hermione’s discarded drink and holding it up to her. “If there’s one thing you could do today, it’s have a drink Weasley would never be able to afford.”

Hermione stared down at the swirling gold flakes. The idea of drinking it was utterly insane. The fact it had been paid for by Parkinson only made it worse.

Parkinson tugged her closer again until she found herself standing between her legs.

“A woman like you deserves expensive things every once and a while,” Parkinson said, much softer. “They’re probably sipping cheap champagne, you could be drinking gold.”

An oddly inappropriate surge of heat passed through Hermione as she realised Parkinson was flirting with her.

As if knowing exactly what she was thinking, Parkinson raised and eyebrow and pressed the glass into one of Hermione’s hands. Hermione gripped it unconsciously as she took in the way Parkinson was looking at her, and the fact it didn’t repulse her like she would have expected.

“Go on,” Parkinson murmured. “Live a little.”

Without really understanding why, and still thinking it was ridiculous, Hermione found herself taking a sip of the drink. It was good wine, and if she had any gold in her mouthful she couldn’t tell, she couldn’t stop looking at Parkinson.

“There was no interview, was there?” she asked.

Parkinson smiled slowly. It wasn’t a smirk like Hermione expected, it was something much warmer.

“Oh, there was,” Parkinson said. “But I like that you think I’m here just for you. It’s bold, confident. I like it.”

Hermione found herself sipping the wine again just for lack of anything to say. Even if it was still ridiculous, she found herself thinking it would have gone nicely with the desert she’d had after dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Parkinson was flirting with her. More than that, she felt herself responding. She held her gaze, she stayed standing close between her legs. She didn’t brush off Parkinson’s hand when it came to rest on her hip.

“But I will admit,” Parkinson said softly, holding her gaze the whole time, “I saw you when I came in, and the whole time I was talking to him I was hoping you’d still be here when I was done.”

“To buy me a drink?” Hermione asked, meaning to scoff but finding herself quite unable.

“Oh, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do,” Parkinson admitted, both hands now on Hermione’s waist, tugging her just a little closer until the front of Hermione’s legs bumped the stool and her body touched Parkinson’s. “We don’t exactly have the best history, but there was always something about you...”

Hermione’s breath seemed caught in her throat. She put the drink down on the bar but still didn’t move away.

“Something about me?” she asked.

Parkinson hummed, her thumbs rubbing softly at her sides. “Come back to my place,” she said. “You don’t need to go home to an empty flat tonight.”

Hermione felt faint. Worse than that, she was still reacting to her. Her breathing had quickened, her heart rate had elevated. There was heat between her legs. All from the fact Parkinson had made a move on her. Just from proximity and suggestion.

“That’s even more ridiculous than gold flakes in wine,” she said.

“A woman like you deserves nice things,” Parkinson murmured.

“Oh? And you’re nice are you?”

Quite without explanation, she was leaning closer to her. She felt utterly drawn to her and there was no possible explanation aside from some lingering petty desire to not be alone while Ron got married.

“I can be,” Parkinson said with a quirk to her lips. “Aren’t you dying to find out?”

Hermione’s breath caught in her throat again. Oddly, she was.

“Go on,” Parkinson breathed, her hands leaving Hermione’s waist to cup her jaw. “Live a little.”

After only a moment of hesitation, Hermione closed her eyes, thought ‘to hell with it’, and kissed her.


End file.
